SINGAPORE: Tourist arrivals to the country have remained strong despite the haze crisis in June, with latest figures from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) showing an increase in year-on-year visitor arrivals for the months of January to August.

The impact of the haze -- which sent the Pollutant Standards Index to a record 401 -- was minimal as it was sudden and short-lived, said experts who cited the strength of the Singapore dollar as a greater factor that would impact visitor numbers.
In fact, June was a month of robust growth in visitor arrivals with 1.26 million visitors recorded, an increase of 8.9 per cent from last year.

Visitor arrivals in the first eight months of this year also grew 8.5 per cent year-on-year to 10.5 million.

Mr Edward Koh, executive director for strategy and planning at STB, said hotel room and tour bookings during the weekend of June 21 to 23 had seen a decline, but the overall impact of the haze in this area was "minimal".

He added that the STB was "cautiously optimistic" of achieving its forecast of 14.8 million to 15.5 million visitors, and S$23.5 billion to S$24.5 billion in tourism receipts this year.

Hong Thai Travel assistant general manager Tony Aw said many of its inbound tour groups had wanted to cancel their trips in June.

But, all the travellers eventually went ahead with their plans as there were no official travel advisories issued by governments, which would have triggered refunds from tour operators. Some frequent independent travellers, however, did cancel their trips, said Mr Aw.

CIMB-GK Research regional economist Song Seng Wun believes Singapore will easily surpass the 7 per cent growth in visitor arrivals he had projected at the start of this year, to some 15.7 million visitors for the year. But, he said the weakening of currencies, like the Indonesian rupiah and Indian rupee, could deter some potential travellers.

"We were more concerned subsequently with the impact of weakened currencies... than the haze."

Though some doctors here have told him that the number of Indonesian patients have fallen in recent months after the rupiah weakened significantly against the Singapore dollar, Mr Song said "per visitor, (spending is) almost unchanged".

Visitors from China -- the second-largest inbound market for Singapore -- could also slow down, due to the Chinese government's curb on "shopping tours", which took effect last month.

With the new regulation, Mr Aw said such tours could double in price and cost 8,000 yuan for a 7-day trip.

Though such "shopping tours" were not offered by Hong Thai, he said several agencies that did are likely to turn their attention to frequent independent travellers instead.

SINGAPORE — Tourist arrivals to the country have remained strong despite the haze crisis in June, with latest figures from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) showing an increase in year-on-year visitor arrivals for the months of January to August. The haze — which caused the Pollutant Standards Index to reach a record 401 — had minimal impact as it was sudden and short-lived, said experts who cited the strength of the Singapore dollar as a greater factor that would affect visitor numbers.

In fact, June was a month of robust growth in visitor arrivals with 1.26 million visitors recorded, an increase of 8.9 per cent from last year. Visitor arrivals in the first eight months of this year also grew 8.5 per cent year-on-year to 10.5 million.

Mr Edward Koh, Executive Director for Strategy and Planning at STB, said hotel room and tour bookings during the weekend of June 21–23 had seen a decline, but the overall impact of the haze in this area was “minimal”. He added that the STB was “cautiously optimistic” of achieving its forecast of 14.8 million to 15.5 million visitors, and S$23.5 billion to S$24.5 billion in tourism receipts this year.

Hong Thai Travel Assistant General Manager Tony Aw said many of its inbound tour groups had wanted to cancel their trips in June. But, all the travellers eventually went ahead with their plans as there were no official travel advisories issued by governments, which would have triggered refunds from tour operators. Some frequent independent travellers, however, did cancel their trips, said Mr Aw.

CIMB-GK Research Regional Economist Song Seng Wun believes Singapore will easily surpass the 7 per cent growth in visitor arrivals he had projected at the start of this year, to about 15.7 million visitors for the year. But, he said the weakening of currencies, like the Indonesian rupiah and Indian rupee, could deter some travellers.

“We were more concerned subsequently with the impact of weakened currencies ... than the haze.”

Though some doctors here have told him that the number of Indonesian patients have fallen in recent months after the rupiah weakened significantly against the Singapore dollar, Mr Song said “per visitor, (spending is) almost unchanged”.

Visitor arrivals from China — the second-largest inbound market for Singapore — could also fall, due to the Chinese government’s curb on “shopping tours”, which took effect last month.

With the new regulation, Mr Aw said such tours could double in price and cost 8,000 yuan (S$1,620) for a seven-day trip.

Though such “shopping tours” were not offered by Hong Thai, he said several agencies that did are likely to turn their attention to frequent independent travellers instead.

SINGAPORE: Singapore's and Malaysia's environment ministers have expressed deep concern over the transboundary haze from land and forest fires in Indonesia that recurs every year.

Meeting in Singapore on Tuesday, Singapore's Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and Malaysia's Natural Resources and Environment Minister G Palanivel noted that the haze has severely affected the people in both their countries.

They resolved to take actions to enhance regional collaboration to prevent the recurrence of the transboundary haze by implementing the ASEAN leaders' decision made at the 23rd ASEAN Summit in October.
The ministers hope that prompt measures will be taken to detect, prevent and suppress fires, added a statement from Singapore's Ministry of Environment and Water Resources issued on Tuesday.

Meeting in Singapore for the 26th Malaysia-Singapore Annual Exchange of Visits, Dr Balakrishnan and Mr Palanivel welcomed the long-standing and close environmental cooperation between their countries.

Other issues discussed on Tuesday include the control of vehicular pollution, the joint monitoring of water quality in the Straits of Johor, and cooperation in preventing chemical and oil spills.

KOTA KINABALU: Wildlife researchers are hoping that they can understand how small carnivores such as civets and otters are able to exist in a mix of forests and plantations in Sabah’s Lower Kinabatangan region through satellite tracking.

The researchers recently trapped a male civet from Lot 5 of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary and fitted him with a transmitting collar before releasing him. They are hoping this civet could provide key information on small carnivores such as their foraging habits.

“The data collected can provide information regarding how small carnivores are using the forest and oil palm plantation matrix in the Kinabatangan region,” said Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) director Datuk Dr Laurentius Ambu.
“The results will in turn guide management plans and conservation actionsin the future.”

The trapping and fitting of the collar on Oct 26 was carried out by SWD, the Kinabatangan Small Carnivore Project (KSCP), Cardiff University (CU) and the Danau Girang Field Centre. It was funded by the Sime Darby Foundation and Houston Zoo.

After trapping and sedating the 5.5kg civet, which the researchers named Tenang, they recorded its length and weight, and took saliva and faecal samples before fitting it with a 70g collar that would relay his whereabouts for the next five months.

Danau Girang director Dr Benoit Goosens said a number of small carnivore species, including six species of the civet, and two otter species, had been found within the Kinabatangan region.

“Our project strives to understand the influence of habitat fragmentation on these small carnivores,” he said.

Cardiff University graduate student Meaghan Harris said the initial data from Tenang’s satellite collar was important to help specialists map out Sabah’s biodiversity conservation plans.

“Civets, although not as flashy as larger carnivores such as the Sunda clouded leopard and the Malayan sun bear, are very important to the rainforest ecosystem,” Harris said.

Geneva — Hundreds of millions of people worldwide risk exposure to toxic pollution, environmental groups warned Monday, publishing a list of the world's worst areas, including an African processing site for European electronics.

"We estimate that the health of more than 200 million people is at risk from pollution in the developing world," said Richard Fuller, who heads US-based environment watchdog the Blacksmith Institute.

The institute and Green Cross Switzerland published a new top 10 list of the "World's Worst Polluted Places" -- their first since 2007 -- based on more than 2,000 risk assessments at contaminated sites in 49 countries.
West Africa's second largest processing area for the world's swelling piles of electronic waste, at Agbogbloshie in Ghana's capital Accra was among new additions.

Each year, Ghana imports around 215,000 tonnes of secondhand consumer electronics, mainly from Western Europe -- a number that is expected to double by 2020, according to the report.

The main health concern linked to e-waste processing in Ghana is the burning of sheathed cables to recover the copper inside, the report said, pointing out that the cables can contain a range of heavy metals, including lead.

Soil samples from around Agbogbloshie have shown concentrations of that toxic metal that are 45 times more than accepted levels, the report said.

"E-waste is really going to be a challenge. It's growing exponentially. Everybody wants a computer, a laptop, the modern devices, so I think we're seeing the tip of the iceberg," Blacksmith research director Jack Caravanos told reporters in a conference call.

Other newcomers to the 2013 list included Indonesia's Citarum River Basin in West Java, an area that is home to around nine million people, but also some 2,000 factories.

The river, which is used among other things for human consumption and to irrigate rice farms, is contaminated by a wide range of toxins, including aluminium and manganese.

Drinking water tests have shown lead at levels more than 1,000 times above US standards, the report said.

Another Indonesian area, Kalimantan on the island of Borneo, was also added to the list due to the widespread artisanal small-scale gold mining there.

Most practitioners of this craft use mercury in the extraction process, and contribute to a large portion of global emissions of the hazardous metal each year.

This year's list also includes Hazaribagh in Bangladesh, which is home to most the country's 270 registered tanneries.

Every day, they collectively dump around 22,000 cubic litres of toxic waste, including cancer-causing hexavalent chromium, into the Buriganga, Dhaka's main river and key water supply.
The Niger River Delta in Nigeria and the Matanza-Riachuelo River Basin in Argentina were also added to the list.

Several toxic industrial areas in the former Soviet Union, including the site of the devastating 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, were carried over from the last list, as was Zambia's lead-mining city Kabwe.

Unlike the list six years ago, which was dominated by Chinese and Indian sites, those two countries are missing from the list published Monday.

"There has been a reasonably strong movement towards clean-up in India and China," Hanrahan explained.